Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Post Primary Ressentiment

The primaries are over, which means that Republicans need no
longer bash Republicans and Democrats need no longer bash Democrats.

A time of “healing” and “unification” is close at hand.

YouTube snippets of former Representative Chris Shays intemperately
asserting he has never in his years of politicking – no, never -- met a
Republican primary opponent he would not under any circumstances support will
live on in a sort of YouTube afterlife, and it would be foolish to suppose that
SuperPACs supporting Democratic primary winner Chris Murphy would not make
ample use of Mr. Shays’ unfortunate apoplectic burst of Nietzsche ressentiment. “I have never run
against an opponent that I have respected less -- ever -- and there are a lot of
candidates I have run against," Mr. Shays told the New Haven Register.

Patrick Skully, the proprietor of “The Hanging Shad,”
touted on his site as “Connecticut’s BEST Political blog and commentary,” wrote
of Mr. Shays on the eve of the primaries, “This is over. The Chris Shays
campaign didn’t care for [Mr. Skully’s] characterization that the former
congressman has gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs because Linda McMahon is beating
him. Sorry, I call ‘em
as I see ‘em.”

It would be redundant to note that Mr. Skully reflexively
supports Democrats and is no friend of Linda McMahon. Following Mrs. McMahon’s
refusal to meet with editorial boards before primary votes were cast, the Republican
Party’s choice for the U.S. Senate has few friends within editorial boards
and none among commentators whose primary business lies in advising promising
Democratic candidates for office.

Some things are obvious:

·Primary scars do not heal quickly; sometimes not
at all. Once the Rubicon is crossed, it becomes impossible to reenter the Roman
Republic. Mr. Shays’ primary campaign remarks may seem insurrectionary to some
Republican Party leaders.

·Democrats are running the state of Connecticut
and have little to fear from Republicans, which is why the first Democratic
governor in more than 20 years, Dannel Malloy, and present Speaker of the state
House Chris Donovan, had little to fear when Republicans were shown the door
during budget negotiations that imposed, mostly on middle class nutmeggers, the
largest tax increase in state history. Even among Connecticut’s left of center media,
no journalist who has a nodding acquaintance with inconvenient truths could
possible confuse Mr. Donovan or his likely replacement, House Majority Leader Brendan
Sharkey, with traditional Connecticut moderate Democrats. Under such
circumstances, the Republican Party needs seasoned fighters, not
accomodationists.

·The “center” in both parties took a hike decades
ago. Moderate Republicans have had no success in overthrowing liberal Democrats
in Connecticut’s Congressional delegation; there are no Rockefeller Republican
survivals in the U.S. House anywhere in New England. Mr. Shays was the last
moderate Republican when he was unseated by current 4th District
U.S. Representative Jim Himes a dozen years ago. Mr. Shays’ present rejection
by Connecticut Republicans simply confirms that the species almost everywhere
in the Northeast has become as extinct as the Dodo bird. The breed lives on
only in the nostalgic memories of journalists in the Northeast afflicted with a
crippling anti-conservative phobia.

·Without question, the most often reiterated
refrain since Mrs. McMahon was unable to prevent then Attorney General Richard
Blumenthal from occupying former Senator Chris Dodd’s seat in the U.S. Congress
– the former senator is now a multi-millionaire lobbyist for Tinseltown – is
that Mrs. McMahon’s millions could not buy a senate seat. Mrs. McMahon’s
critics were right: Fifty million dollars spent on a senate campaign was
pointlessly spent. However, a recent variation on the refrain goes like this:
Money can buy a senate seat. So says Mr. Murphy, Democrats everywhere in the
state and the state’s left of center media. Their message, in any case, is
confusing.

What has not been said of Mrs. McMahon’s campaign is perhaps
more important, if less obvious.

She has so far run a very traditional, stellar ground
campaign, which is no guarantee that she will prevail over Mr. Murphy, who has
gathered in his own corner enough dollars and ancillary support to wage an
effective campaign against Mrs. McMahon.

Of the two campaigners, Mrs. McMahon’s message – it’s
raining, and the spending downpour is not likely to stop anytime soon --
comports with the reality people see when they free themselves of campaign
propaganda and look out the window at the real world.